KELSEYVILLE >> Triple-digit heat throughout Northern California prompted Berean Chrisian High School officials to cancel junior varsity and varsity football games with Kelseyville scheduled for Friday night.
“It’s kind of a bummer, but it is what it is,” Kelseyville High School athletic director Scott Conrad said after learning of Berean Christian’s decision early Friday afternoon.
The Eagles play on a black synthetic turf field where the temperature was in the neighborhood of 140 degrees early Friday, according to Conrad. The air temperature in Walnut Creek was 107 degrees as of 3 p.m. Friday.
Several Bay Area schools had canceled their JV games on Friday as a heat precaution, according to Conrad, but not the varsity games, which typically kick off around 8 p.m., or 42 minutes after Friday’s sunset.
The projected air temperature for the Kelseyville-Berean Christian varsity kickoff was just below 100 degrees.
Kelseyville varsity football coach Erick Larsen said that while he’s all for protecting the health of players, he’s just not sure his varsity players would have been in any extra danger participating in a game that begins after sunset.
“I can’t tell you many Saturday afternoon games we used to play when it was a lot hotter,” Larsen said. “You’re careful to hydrate and you hydrate a lot.”
There is no chance Kelseyville and Berean Christian can make up the game because they are booked solid for the remainder of the regular season and their bye dates fall on different weekends – Kelseyville on Sept. 22-23 and Berean Christian on Sept. 29-30.
Larsen said Kelseyville would look for another school that has an open date on the weekend of Sept. 22-23.
“I don’t know what’s out there but I’ll start looking,” Larsen said. “We don’t want to end up playing De La Salle. It would have to be a one-year deal because we have a (home-and-away) contract with Berean Christian (that runs through next season).”
Apart from the disappointment of losing a football game at the last second, Larsen said the Knights needed a second non-league game to prepare for the start of league play next week when they face a tough road test at St. Helena.
“We’re a young team and we need the experience,” Larsen said of the Knights, who opened their season a week ago with a 8-0 home win over Stellar Prep. “The kids put in a good week of practice and we were prepared to play this game. Win, lose or draw we would get some great experience. Now we’re going to have some questions unanswered going into league.”
The option of playing the game in Kelseyville wasn’t terrifically appealing to Berean Christian officials, according to Larsen, because of heat and air quality advisories issued for Lake County where smoke from Northern California and Oregon fires has choked the local air basin.
Scheduled games in Lake County on Friday night pitted Esparto at Lower Lake and Hercules at Middletown. Lower Lake officials pushed the starting times for both the JV and varsity games back an hour – to 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Middletown’s normal starting times of 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. were still in place as of late Friday afternoon.
